NOAA’s Tahara Dawkins: Satellite Servicing Industry Needs Govt Support

Tahara Dawkins, director of the commercial remote sensing regulatory affairs office at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has said she believes government regulators should help in-orbit satellite servicing systems reach commercial viability, C4ISRNET reported Friday.

“If we restrict this industry to a place where they’re not commercially viable, then this gets driven overseas,” Dawkins said at the 2018 Satellite conference.

She noted that five U.S. companies have secured licenses for on-orbit servicing missions.

Joe Anderson, director of Mission Extension Vehicle services at Orbital ATK, said at the event that the company plans to expand its work beyond geo-life extension platforms.

“Ultimately we want to develop an entire fleet of in-orbit service vehicles, including in-orbit assembly vehicles,” Anderson added.

Orbital ATK launched two in-orbit satellite servicing platforms – Mission Robotic Vehicle and Mission Extension Pods – at the conference.